A2 AQA BUSS4: Strategies Businesses could have adopted to prepare for the recession.

Surprised more people didn't do question 2, I thought it was relatively straight forward and I gave a lot of different viewpoints on it, and used plenty of examples. Sadly I spent so long on it that my evaluation on Section B (I did Q4) was really rushed. Hopefully the rest of the question was good enough to get me a decent mark.

Jim Seems like hardly anyone has done the bad decisions one!! ...(Could that be an adv.?)
Would it be ok if i said:

Businesses want to maximise profits
M & S hadn't developed enough domestically when it went abroad
Mission statements - starbucks grew too quickly
Culture- BA
Not understanding customers needs- (?E.g. of Tesco who does understand)
e.t.c.

Thanks..

Hey Guys, i did questions 1 and 3 and i must say i was really pleased they came up.

for question 1

i talked about how the recession started, porter's two strategies and the car industry as my introduction.
then...
Honda, how they closed their factory and this was short term etc...
then...
ryanair and how they have a long term cost cutting strategy which they had going into the recession but i thought it was still relevant.
then...
Woolworths, i showed how cost cutting doesn't always prove successful and how they had no focus.
then...
i talked about how you could differenciate rather than cost cut.
John Lewis as example.
Toyota hybrid Prius as an example.
then...
conclusion, it helps but depends on the market eg oligopoly, monopoly and monopolistic-competition. also about the product you have.

For question 3

iINTRODUCTION: talked about managining change and about culture. using Mckinsey and Drucker quotes. also about different methods of change (step/incremental) and about how lewin said there will always be resistors to change. oh and how Handy split culture into role/people/person.
then...
Google and the culture they have and how it's a constant incremental change as there so innovative and investing in R&D all the time.
then...
M&S how Sir Stuart Rose completely change the culture when he was appointed CEO.
then...
BA and how Willie Walsh is a bad example of step change, no communication or consultation with employees. they were resistors.
then...
talked about how other things could improve a companies performance like Steve Jobs at Apple, a better leader.
then...
conclusion how it wouldn't be easy for the new BP CEO.

The use of the word "multinational" was a key part of this question - the org culture of a business operating around the globe is particularly difficult to change.

Jim

The use of the word "multinational" was a key part of this question - the org culture of a business operating around the globe is particularly difficult to change.

Jim

Yea i said it's key that they have good communication and consultation, particularly because they had 92,000 employees and they were operating globally in so many different companies.

By the way, for the first question i done:

Why cost-cutting is good
Why it isint
Other methods of startegy
Leadership/Culture
Conclusion.

Jim mentioned that Leadership/Culture is very important, so i thought ill throw that in

I did similiar but I included long-term/short-term info instead of leadership/culture

Yeah i wrote everything i remmember from Dominos, BA, Nissan, Apple...so hopefully it was ok. For cost-cutting did we have to identify different methods of cost-cutting or? i havent done that ;(

Im not sure if it was necessary, but i just talked about different forms of cutting costs and there implications for the business, eg Rationalisation, Retrenchment etc
Built that into my essay.
Section A was really nice, just a shame for me with section B

Yeah i wrote everything i remmember from Dominos, BA, Nissan, Apple...so hopefully it was ok. For cost-cutting did we have to identify different methods of cost-cutting or? i havent done that ;(

Thats what i thought at first! But i re-read the questions (lots of times) and it didnt ask specfically for that....so i didnt give particular methods.

I did what you did, as explained in your previous post....I think we did it right.

why what question did you answer? I did question 4 and thought it was quite similar to the recession question...
luckily at the end of the exam i realized i had put 02 as the question number for the second question instead of 04 and quickly changed however i reckon so many people did this !!

what kinda things did u write for q4?

8 pages and my hand was dying after after 3.